Watch HANGING OUT, Petersen Vargas' Endearing Filipino Gay Web Series

Petersen Vargas made a stunning debut feature with2 Cool 2 Be 4Gotten, a film with a razor-sharp view at pubescent life as a young gay man. The film won best picture at the recently concluded Cinema One Originals Film Festival, and with it the very likely chance of a theatrical run abroad. It’s a personal favorite, something of a mesh between Pedro Almodóvar and Wong Kar-wai. If you take a look at the trailer here, you’ll get quickly what I mean.

Vargas, an ardent advocate of the local LGBTQ community, has recently partnered with TEAM Magazine for a web-series, titled Hanging Out, reflecting the lives of gay millennials in Manila. Think: what Andrew Haigh was doing for ‘cisco in the two glorious seasons of Looking. Vargas just came out with the pilot episode, titled “Best Hookup Ever,” in which a young man named David, after a failed one-night-stand, finds himself entangled with a diverse group of friends.

Watch the pilot episode, in full, below.

The web series consists of six episodes and follows David’s character as he goes further into the life of a young gay Manileño. Hanging Out is the first web series in the Philippines to tell stories with a focus on queer issues.

“There is a real need for Filipino queer stories to be told now,” says Wanggo Gallaga, who wrote the series. “You can see it in social media: a new generation of young gay and trans men and women who want to hear their stories being told. That’s what we aimed to do with this web series. We wanted the series to be as true and as honest as it can be.”